Inevitably, the big chill arrives. The puffer, which has come down in size, has become the outerwear basic, the go-to topper for every day. And they are so stylish, so comfortable, so cozy, we don’t even wait for the deep freeze to wear them.

Even before the first frost, college kids, in particular, don their downs, often a Canada Goose or a Mackage.

Wool and leather are the more traditional options for transitional weather, of course, but wool has not been performing in sales in recent years at Manteaux Manteaux, according to Perlman, vice-president of the chain of 41 multi-brand stores.

Montreal designers and manufacturers have long seen the need for us to bundle up. Utex, Hilary Radley, Mackage, Rudsak and Harricana have built successful brands beyond our borders, using wool, leather, fur, down and synthetics to cheat the chill. Kanuk has confined its business in synthetic fills to Quebec, "a big name but a small business,” said Kanuk's Nathalie Mongeau.

The European brands like Moncler and Add are game players, too, having pioneered the match of high tech and high style in down coats.

A new player in the Canadian field, Nobis, claims to improve on the warmth and comfort of the Canada Goose.

Utex started out in a bicycle shop in 1943, making men’s shirts and evolving into outerwear. Chances are, women of a certain generation in Montreal grew up wearing Utex and may still have Utex coats in the closet.

"We produce a nice fashion, not way out. It’s fashion that lasts, it’s a fit that lasts, a quality that lasts,” said Marian Gurberg, vice-president and daughter of founder Irving, who travelled to China in the 1960s, developing the technology for factories to make down coats there.

"If not the first, we were one of the first to go into China,” Gurberg said, and possibly the first to bring down coats to the mass market. "It’s the consistent, dependable, count-on garment, not so fashion-forward it only lasts 10 minutes."

Utex has a stable of brands, including Daniel Hechter and Jones, and will introduce a mini collection by Cynthia Rowley for next spring, followed by a full collection next fall. Branching out, Utex Fashion Group has just launched an online site for shopping by measurement, not size. The site, asuare.com, short for Just As You Are, caters to plus size. Gurberg noted that more than 60 per cent of women in the U.S. are plus size and the average size is 14. "We really feel this concept is the wave of the future,” she said.

Eran Elfassy and Elisa Dahan, 32 and in business since 1999, are the wunderkinds of the coat world, having put their Mackage brand on the map, with points of sale in all the majors across North America, their own boutiques in Soho and on the Left Bank, and a ready-to-wear line going into its fourth collection.

One coat in particular has been so popular, it has been on the backs of seemingly every second stylish Montrealer and has been knocked off. The demand is so huge, Elfassy said, that they remade it, in the original Peaches version with Dupont synthetic fill and bouffant sleeves, as well as in a new modified style. The new version — called Adali in a short length, Kay in long — is down-filled and more classic in design, Dahan said. It has duck down and feathers, a polyester, water-resistant outer shell and fur trim of coyote or raccoon.

And the demand is still there, with the company recutting the style for second orders from stores, Elfassy said.

"It’s a warm coat that doesn’t make you look sporty. You can dress up and be warm,” Dahan said.

"A woman does not have to feel like a Goodyear,” Elfassy added. "As we get older, we realized it’s important to be warm.”

Their priorities have changed, Dahan acknowledged. Their coats used to be fashion first and cut very tiny. "I guess in business, and as a designer, experience in life helps. We learn from the mistakes of the past, and improve for the future," Elfassy said.

The pair do every category of outerwear, with a lot of mixed materials like leather, wool and sheepskin combinations.

Canada, coats and pioneers seem to go together. Mariouche Gagne is yet another groundbreaker in the outerwear field, having taken the notion of recycling furs to market in 1994 with her Harricana line.

"We should buy less and buy better quality. Montrealers need something that will last and fur is still the longest lasting coat you can have. It lasts three generations, from the grandma, to the daughter to the granddaughter,” Gagne said.

"The DNA of Harricana, I would like it to be like a Canadian, Inuit, Grand Nord Hermes,” she said, noting the superb, lasting quality of the French brand. "If everything we bought lasted longer, the planet would be in much better shape and everybody would look better. I’m a planet freak and a winter freak."

A sweater coat mixed with fur, good for right now, is her pick for a coat to represent her brand. Still, she realizes that Montrealers need coats for deep freeze temps of down to minus 40 C. The big parkas are not the sexiest things, she acknowledges, but they do the job.

The other option is recycled fur. Gagne prefers wild furs like coyote and lynx, as well as Canadian sable and sheared, dyed raccoon. Raccoon is indestructible, she notes. The price range is $1,000 to $3,000.

Call her the queen of coats. Since 1983, the British-born Hilary Radley, our lady of the coats, has been defining outerwear style across North America.

"It’s intelligent, well-thought-out comfort with luxury and value,” Radley said of the DNA of her coats.

Radley has branched out. Formerly part of Utex, the brand is now part of the Levy Group coat family, and has collections that range from alpaca and wool to sporty down. She also has forayed into fur, creating a capsule of 12 coats, from mink and chinchilla to "a nice cocoon sable,” a collection done with Montreal’s North Pole Furs.

"Fur trim and fur is so hot at this moment,” she noted. That said, Radley chose a classic camel coat with a fur collar to exemplify the essence of her style.

Founded in 1975, this Quebec-only brand features a signature round gold owl logo inside the collar. The fill is always synthetic. "Because it’s always humid in Montreal because of the St. Lawrence River,” said Nathalie Mongeau, in charge of the catalogue for the company. A micro-porous fabric allows breathability, she said, adding, "(We mean it) when we say minus 35 degrees — we’re crazy maniacs for warmth,” she said. "There are two layers of insulation. No seam goes right through both layers.”

A former principal of Canada Goose, Robin Yates launched Nobis in 2008. The brand, now shipped to 25 countries, improves on the Goose, according to Yates, who is based in Markham, Ont. People were getting wet when it rained, "aggressive Velcro" was ruining sweaters and the jackets are hot, he said.

The Nobis has an extra layer of lining to keep down feathers off your clothes. The lining, 20 denier nylon, is also breathable, Yates said.

"Down doesn’t insulate unless it can trap warm air off your body. When it does so, if that air is warm and moist, it will actually wick away the moisture and then create that insulation barrier,” he explained.

"If you can’t get the warm air to it, it actually doesn’t do anything other than burden you by weight.”

Yates calls the She-Ra, a full-length ultimate parka, awesome, with a removable Rex rabbit collar and a coyote trim on a removable hood.

"City cold is different than North cold,” he pointed out.

In the city when you get cold, it’s because you get wet or damp or the wind gets to you. The Nobis uses a Sympatex membrane lining, laminated to the outer shell and sealed to major seams so the coats are windproof, waterproof and breathable.

The coats also contain 100 per cent Canadian duck down for larger volume that creates bigger fill areas with less weight, he said.

In a nutshell, Yates added, the jackets with their removable fur bits and pit zips can be styled to suit the weather from late September to April.

"It’s amazing that you don’t have to peel it off when you get in the car or, when you’re going shopping, lop it off your shoulders,” he said.

Yates is off to London soon, for a pop-up shop at Harrods, to open mid-November.

"Down functions three times better than the best synthetic as far insulation value. I am that crazy guy that goes to the Arctic, but I don’t like to be cold,” Yates said.

Down is heavier, but takes a little more care to wash.

The best thing to do for down is to wash it in a non-aggressive detergent, inside out on medium cycle, then loft it in the dryer, he said.

How to get down

Monte Perlman, vice-president of Manteaux Manteaux, offers these tips on buying a down (or synthetic-filled) coat:

- Comfort and ease of movement is important. Take into account that you will probably wear layers in winter.

- Match the coat or jacket to the activity. A long, hooded coat, with ribbed cuffs and drawstring closings, is best for low-energy activity like walking the dog. Active sports like skating and skiing require lighter, shorter garments.

- You can never go wrong with black, but colour is nice in winter.

- Be comfortable with the price point.

- For quality, look for at least 60 per cent down, usually duck. Goose is lighter, but the heat retention is the same and the cost is higher.

- The jacket or coat should be machine washable.

- The outer shell, whether cotton or nylon, should be water-repellent.

- Quality down is made with several layers of lining. If you see feathers coming out of the lining, that’s a bad sign. Push the feather back in, rather than pull it out, if you see one.

- Down vs. synthetic: Synthetic fill offers better heat retention when wet, but many people like the look and feel of down.

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